TheBanyanTree: Religious Instruction - 2

[PJMoney]

There was a big meeting.  Attending were the school Principal, the chairman
of the School Council, a representative of the Department of Education and
members of the Darwin Council for Christian Education (or some name like
that).  

It turned out that one teacher had complained that the Year 1/2 RI teacher
did not seem to be following a curriculum, as far as she could tell.  Good
grief!  Call me cynical but given the irreligious nature of Australian
society I find it hard to imagine why any state school teacher would feel
him or herself qualified to make that judgement.  

Of course we all follow a curriculum!  These are set by the teachers who
work for the church organisations devoted to providing educational resources
for volunteers, like us mob, who go into the schools to actually teach
"Scripture" to kids.  Do they think we volunteers have so much spare time
(and so little interest in children's educational welfare) that we can
afford to freely spend the hours required to make stuff up as we go along?
Good grief!  As it is, and with a teacher's manual and all the children's
workbooks supplied, I still take a whole day each week preparing to present
each 1/2 hour lesson.  I'd want at least six months off all my other jobs
before I'd feel even remotely comfortable about presenting something to
these kids that I'd thought up by myself.

So that was one complaint.  In order to nullify it we had to provide copies
of the relevant documents.  That was easy, but it meant that one of our
teachers is now without a copy of his teacher's manual.  Money is tight.  

Then there was a complaint that a Year 6/7 Catholic RI teacher had asked
students to raise their hand if they went to church regularly.  Only two did
whereupon the RI teacher devoted himself to explaining the liturgy of the
Mass.  This, the class teacher thought, was too advanced for children of
Year 6/7 age.  

Again, good grief!  I don't know anything about the liturgy of the Mass but
I'm sure hearing about that requires a lot less maturity to cope with than
the sort of sex education classes to which kids of that age are routinely
exposed these days.  And why wouldn't Catholic parents want their children
to have some basic appreciation of what's involved in a Mass?  Presumptuous
twit of a class teacher/RI supervisor!

Also, the School Council chairman had his own complaint.  Apparently his
kids go to Catholic "Scripture".  It seems that one their RI teachers once
said that anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus and go to Mass regularly will
go to hell.  As far as I know the first postulate is correct but I wouldn't
try to scare little children with it because they are way below the age of
accountability.  I do not believe the second one but, again, I'm not a
Catholic, don't know what their teaching is and wouldn't presume to tell
them what to do.  They have to work that stuff out for themselves and
without interference from those who haven't completely bought into their
tradition.

In any case, the RI teacher involved became known for being problematic and
has not been accredited as a Catechist for some time.  Certainly, she hasn't
been around for the six months that I've been doing this job.  But some
people hold grudges, I guess.  I don't know why this bloke didn't take his
problem up with his local priest.  Maybe he was worried that the priest
would castigate him for not going to Mass regularly and bringing his
children with him.  Who knows?

Anyway, it looks like we'll be allowed to go back to Karama next term. 

In the meantime I've been continuing to teach the children at Nakara.  Last
week, as I left, one little girl said, "Bye, bye Mrs Money," and gave me a
cuddle.  

That was a bit disconcerting.  Thank goodness she did it in a room full of
other children and at least one class teacher.  As I patted her on the
shoulder I worried about the applicability of the no touch rule.  What a
shame it is that ordinary expressions of affection have become so scarily
freighted with possibly, perversely, sexualised meanings!

Also last week, one of the girls asked if we could have singing like the
minister used to do before I took over the teaching from him.  I agreed to
do it even though I'd rather use my measly half hour on just the story.

The teacher's manual comes with a CD with songs.  I picked one that could go
with the story for this week but, geeze, it's all rock-style music.  On top
of that the room where I teach has no walls - only low partitions - and
there are no doors you can close.  

The space is a relic of the 1970s team-teaching approach.  There are three
classes in that space and the noise from each affects all the others.  I've
had trouble in the past hearing what's going on with my group because of the
noise one or other of the other groups are making.  This week, for about ten
minutes of my puny thirty, the other groups couldn't do what they were
trying to do because of the noise of rock music coming from the area I was
working in.

I can't see that teaching a rock music type song is worth the problems that
it causes to everyone else in the space we have to share.  Maybe I'll go to
the local Christian book store and look for some music for kids that isn't
so loudly adolescent.  Or maybe I'll just forget about the singing thing.
That would be a shame but life is full of the need for compromise.

Janice